Death Be Not Proud

Tim Challies posted this John Donne poem this morning and as I read it, I was flooded with memories from my freshman year in high school—the year God saved me—because I was reading John Gunther’s book by the same title (Death Be Not Proud) and the reality of the brevity of life was pressing hard upon me.

If you haven’t read the Gunther book, it is a memoir by the father of a remarkable teenage boy who is diagnosed with brain cancer and dies at age seventeen. To the best of my recollection, it is not an overtly “Christian” book. I don’t recall that it included any clear presentation of the gospel message of salvation by faith alone. But it is a beautifully written book that touched my little messed-up teenage heart in a multitude of ways—from the divorced parents, to the call to suffer well and never be embittered by your life’s circumstances, but instead to make the best of whatever time you have on this earth.

But mostly? I remember thinking as I read the poem on the inside page of the tiny paperback, “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” (How do we sleep this “short sleep” and “wake eternally”? HOW does death die? Who kills death?)

Needless to say, God used this poem mightily in my conversion:

“DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
 And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”

(I strongly urge you to read it out loud. Oh. Some poetry really needs to be read out loud.)

I’m sure that my visceral reaction this morning (the emotions I felt were almost tangible they were so strong) is due to the fact that this morning is Easter Morning and of all of the days of the year, we meditate on (and celebrate!) Christ’s resurrection the very most on this day. But I also credit Maundy Thursday and Good Friday with all of the attendant contemplations of those two days.

(I would be asleep in the Garden, so little do I care of my Lord and so much do I care of myself. I would deny Christ, so weak is my faith. In the heat of the horror, I would forget everything He’s said and done too. I deserve the scorn, suffering, and death. I would be hiding out, hopeless, after His death. I wouldn’t believe it either when women told me that the tomb was empty).

But my weakness is blissfully irrelevant to the strength of God’s saving grace. Not waiting for me to lift my own dead body out of the pit, He condescends because He is the holy, just, merciful, compassionate, saving, Triune God. He suffers and dies. He conquers and rises. He sends His Spirit. One terrifying day, He will return again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

And then, death shall be no more. “Death, thou shalt die.”

Amen & Amen! And Maranatha, Lord Jesus. Come quickly, we pray.

Happy, Blessed Resurrection Day to you all—

Yours,
Tara B.